Part of the reason why I hardly go out and make big decisions or make big purchases is because it's never as easy as just buying one thing or deciding one thing. One thing always leads to another thing which leads to another and so on and so forth. Case in point, my beautiful, lovely bed which came on Friday.

Of course, the bed came out a bit bigger than I had expected and a tad bigger than it's alloted slot (having a tiny studio, space is a premium). Which meant moving things around. Which meant my rickety old bookcase is no longer with us because it fell apart while being moved around. With a new bed, less room, and a broken down book case, I spent a large part of Friday night taking apart my old bookcase and then running out to buy a new one. I now have a new book case. The book case, however, is a tad smaller than my old one and can hold less books so now I'm either going to have to buy another book case or, more likely sell (give away) a lot of my books. And because it's smaller than the other one, I moved it into another spot which opens up a spot by my bed. So now I have room to buy something else. And because I had my stereo on top of my old bookshelf but couldn't because the new bookshelf is too small, I had to move the stereo. It is now right by my tv meaning I have the fullly loaded home entertainment system. Albeit non-operational as I still haven't figured out where I'm going to plug everything in.

But most importantly, with a new bed, one that's an actual real piece of furniture, I suddenly realized more than ever that my rinky-dink, sparsely decorated place I call a home is all off feng shui-wise. Having a nice piece of furniture in a room full of crap doesn't work. This meant that all of yesterday, I went home-furnishing shopping and spent a large part of yesterday (the non-drunken part I should say), buying pictures, moving pictures, and hammering pictures into walls. Left to go out and be dealt with are my old books that I'm getting rid of, the pieces of wood that made up my old bookshelf, and a sudden and strange desire to buy plants. Because I know actually have a decent looking apartment that should be made more decent.

And all because I got my luscious, super-comfy, super-huge bed. A bed, by the way, that is making it so that I'm finding even harder to get out of. I friggin slept about eleven hours Friday night and have been taking way more naps than usual.

On Friday I'm at the gym and as I come out of the shower, I see some Asian dude getting into his shower wearing only a shirt, a small-ish shirt, so that basically everyone can see everything that most people would want covered up. But, obviously, not him. Later on, I see him going to his locker. He's completely naked but has his shirt wrapped over his shoulder, completely wet. He's wearing no towel or even has a towel with him but instead, has his towels in his locker.

Dunno either.

I signed up to play in a volleyball league in the Marina. Yeah, I know. It doesn't get more yuppie than that. In fact, there's an actual sign by the fields that says "No Volleyball Before 6 PM," a sign I'm sure one doesn't see in the Bayview.

Anyways, now that I'm playing again I once again find myself having to deal with the fact I have some issues with some of the standard team rules of volleyball. The main one being the idea that the person in the center front is the setter. If you get the first hit on the ball, you're supposed to tap it to the setter so they can set it to someone else. And if you're the setter, you have to get the second tapped ball and set it up for somebody else. The problem that I have with the rule is that it seems like a totally stupid rule. Or, let's put it this way, if you're playing on a really good team and everyone can control the ball, it makes sense. Shouldn't it be if you have a reasonable chance of making a good hit across the net shouldn't you take it? Isn't that the whole point of volleyball?

See, if you're playing on a team that either sucks (which I've played on) or was good but not great, it makes no sense. Like on this one team, we had a few people who were lousy setters. Since I was getting harshed on for not hitting it to the setter, I gave up on what would have been totally easy shots over the net and sent it to the setter, only to watch them totally biff the shot. After a few perfect chances were blown by the setter, I stopped hitting it to the setter, which brought shouts from my teammates. "You're supposed to hit it to the setter!" But aren't we supposed to win?

And if you're the setter, you're supposed to go after every second ball. Even if it's all the way to the back corner and way to the left and you're lying on the ground because you've tripped on your shoelaces. So everyone kind of stands around and wait for you to make the move or at least yell "need help!" So yeah, I could yell "need help!" everytime I need help but if I'm facing the wrong direction and the ball is about ten feet over my head and to the side, shouldn't it be obvious that I need help? Do I have to state the obvious?

But the thing I hate most about all this is I seem to be the only who thinks all of this is stupid. Which probably explains a lot of my life, actually.

Because at this point of my life I'm supposed to be living in the burbs with 2.5 kids, I tend to roll with the younger set. Which means I'm going to parties or attending events in which people at my age are not attending. Lately, I've been falling into the habit of looking around to see if I'm the oldest person involved at the certain event. Like parties or playing sports or seeing bands or basically anything that doesn't play dates and birthday parties for 2 year olds. Whenever I see someone either my age or a bit younger, I always breathe a sigh of relief knowing I'm not the only old guy there. Everytime I'm in that situation where I think I'm the oldest one there, I always wonder if everyone else there sees me as the creepy old guy hanging out with the young kids because either they can't grow up or they have no life. Of course, they could also me as the hip old guy still holding true and still out there trying to have fun, but I don't see that being the case.

And so it finally happened, I lopped off my hair. The long/styled hair phase of my life is over. And it feels good.

The way I see it, everyone goes through a funky hair phase. I never did. For whatever reason, I decided to do it this year. And yeah, it was kind of fun and yeah, I probably had way too many bad hair days (more than I'd ever want to think about), the whole thing felt like some fevered dream that involved me but wasn't me. And Auntie Em and Uncle Henry were there too. All of which pretty much explains how the last few months have felt.

Funny thing is I probably would have lopped it off long ago, but it's just such a dramatic change and I hate the whole "oh, you got a haircut" thing so much that I chickened out just so I would avoid having to do that. And yeah, pretty stupid. But I'm liking short hair again. Among other things, it takes about five seconds to deal with in the morning. And I pretty much know what it's going to look like during the day. And I don't have to go to the blow dryer at the gym to dry my hair before leaving, then go to the bathroom when I get back to the office a few minutes later because the wind totally destroyed anything I did to it. Right now, well, everything feels like it's in the right place.

And one more thing. I used to have this theory that one could tell what kind of stage of their life they were in depending on the kind of bed they got. In college, it's a hand me down that they pretty much shared with a roomate. Post-college, it's usually either the futon or the mattress on the floor. Then, when you get older and more mature, you finally move up to an actual, real life bed. Last stage, well other than the death bed, is the king sized bed for when you're coupled.

After way too many years sleepin on a raised futon, I finally threw down and got myself a real bed. A real expensive bed (seriously, how can beds be so expensive? It's just a mattress on a frame?). And man, I can't wait to sleep in it. Better yet, I can't wait to kick back and spend entire weekends doing nothing but watching Tivo in bed.

That's living.

Yeah, no new post today or for the weekend. Sorry.

I'm still recovering from a bad case of the blah's so it'll be a day or two. Actually, I was going to post today but got waylaid by beautiful weather, a Giants game, and $8 beer. Well, that and something called "The Sheboygan."

I think it goes without saying, but R.I.P. Scotty. We hope you're up there in Heaven, drinking Mint Juleps with DeForest and throwing angelic spitballs at Shatner.

"I'm giving it all I can, Captain...."

While getting driven home in a cab tonight, I heard a couple of interesting sound bits on the radio.

First of is our president, Smirkboy, introducing the new old white guy who will be nominated for the Supreme Court. Right after announcing his name, the first thing out of the President’s mouth was that the new guy "loves our country." And all I can think of is that, well, thank God. Because I’d hate to think that somebody who could be on the Supreme Court would hate our country. Do you think that’s the first think George asked when he interviewed him? Like it was question #1 on the multiple choice fill-out form I’m sure all the applicants had to fill out (right after his name, address and ss#, of course). And do they really think somebody out there is saying right after they hear that "well, golly gee, Edna, he loves our country. He’s going to be a good choice." And wouldn’t it be cool if the President instead said something like "he loves ‘Star Wars.’ Or He loves chocolate chip ice cream. Or even he loves natural boobies"?

Afterwards, there was a story about a new movement afoot, one called Localvores. Localvores are people who espouse the belief that we should only eat things that are withing 100 miles of where we live. Apparently, the people behind it are trying to make August "National Localvore Month." And the person they interviewed said that "people are really behind it" and "everyone’s really excited."

Which, of course, raises this question- like who?

I’m riding downtown on the bus, one of those double-stretch ones, and I’m sitting way in the back when I start hearing yelling. I look up and this big crazy black dude is screaming at the chinese bus driver and calling him all sorts of names. I can’t quite make out what the guy is yelling about as the only word I keep on hearing is the f word (f, as in fegelah, not as in f you).

Normally, these kind of situations are a little fun to observe as everyone kind of sits there pretending nothing is going on while all while getting more and more tense. This time wasn’t that fun. The dude was big and he was angry and he was going off and the bus driver was just sitting there with that stoic look on his face, the kind in which the person is trying to show they’re not upset but really are.

When the bus pulled up to it’s next stop, half the bus got off and I’m pretty sure half the bus didn’t need to get off as it wasn’t that major of a stop. In fact, people moved so quickly and with such an edge to it that it could only be that everyone wanted off. The worst part is that everyone leaving only incited the guy. As the bus pulled away, I saw the crazy guy stand up, arms waving, and start entering the driver’s personal space, thus probably making everyone who stayed wish they got off the bus.

Now while I often complain about MUNI or the MUNI union, I don’t with the drivers because whatever goes wrong isn’t usually their fault. If the bus breaks down or is late because of traffic, it’s not because of them. The main reason why I don’t is because every once in awhile some driver has to deal with something like that and I feel really bad for them. The driver was some small Asian dude. There’s no way in hell he’s going to be able to boss some big angry crazy guy. If I was that driver, I’d do the exact same thing he was doing – keep my hands on the wheel, look straight ahead, and pray to whomever that the guy gets off and pronto.

An old bugaboo from my youth returned this week in the guise of being made a benchwarmer. For kickball.

This weekend was the big kickball playoffs/tournament and I guess I was the designated benchwarmer. Which is fine except for the fact that I was also the only male benchwarmer. We had just enough guys so that only one guy needed to sit out every inning. Normally, this would mean some sort of rotation so that everyone would play at least the entire game. That is, if the people running the team were cool. Instead they decided that it being the playoffs and all they needed to have their best people playing most of the game and the weaker players playing only a few innings at best. I was the weaker player. This despite the fact I’m not that bad of a player. In fact, I’m pretty good at kickball. I still have a bit of a pock mark on the back of my wrist left from a nasty cut I got from making a diving catch into foul territory, into another field, from a couple of weeks ago. I can catch big, red balls as well as anyone. All of which is why I think there was also an element of cool kids versus non-cool kids and did I mention this was all way too much like being a kid again?

At one point, I got a little uppity and went out onto the field when I wasn’t supposed to. When one of the captains saw me, he told me to sit down and let someone else play. When I told him I’d been sitting all day, he said something along the lines of "that’s because we want to win."

When I was younger, stuff like that happened a bit more than I’d like to admit it. In fact, due to a suck-ass High school soccer coach, I pretty much gave up on organized sports for awhile. But now that I’m much older, my first reaction was "I’m 37 years old. I’m too old for this shit."

Now when I saw that I’m too old for this shit, I don’t mean it in terms of respecting your elders, although that’s a bit of it. It’s more like when you get older, and actually it’s one of the few better parts, you have a better sense of what’s b.s. and what’s not. That attitude is total b.s. It’s lame. The fact that it came from some snot nosed kid in his early twenties makes it that much lamer ("why, when I was your age…."). And people who actually say things like that, well, the jerk store called and they want him back.

The other problem with something like this is that I’ve played enough sports and watched enough sports to realize that being stuck in that position is a no-win situation. Which is why I hate those situations. It’s sports. It’s about winning. It’s about giving one for the team. Don’t say anything and you come off as a team player. Complain and you’re not a team player. You’re a malcontent. You’re the guy who whined about not playing when the team is going to levels of playoff kickball that they have never achieved before. If it was professional sports, I’d be the guy all the sports columnists say should be traded or released or railed against on "Pardon the Interruption."

All of which is true, except for one thing- we’re talking about kickball here.

So what did I do? I went to the sidelines and brooded. Like usual. Except this time, I didn’t do the "woe is me" brood. I brooded angrily. And I didn’t really root for us to win. And then I bailed on the end-of-the-season party to read "Harry Potter." That’ll show them to mess with me.

Oh, and, of course, I did what bloggers do- I totally called them out online in front of the four people who read this, two of whom are travelling right now and not reading it. Fuckers.

When do you know you’re in a weird place? When you have a weird craving to listen to the soundtrack from "Hair."

So I’m turning into a person I never thought I’d turn into- a sandal wearer. Or more like a flip flop wearer. Except for a brief time in college when I was walking around barefoot (why? because I had just moved to California and realized I could) I’ve been pretty much anti-sandal. Not that I have problems with people who wear flip flops on a regular basis, I just didn’t think I was that type of person. Too crunchy granola and I don’t want to be crunchy or granola.

But lately, I’ve been wearing the flip flops around. To yoga, around the hood, to the movies, and even to Zietgiest, a non crunchy granola place if ever there was (it was a Sunday! It doesn’t count!).

Why am I suddenly sporting the sandals? Dunno. Could be more relaxed attitude on my part. Or it could be I’ve hit a new level of laziness.

PS- when do you know this whole "kids love the 80’s" thing is getting out of control? When a party several weeks ago had people rocking out to "Hall & Oates Greatest Hits." Or when the hipsters next door show their ironic hipness by busting out "Bryan Adams Greatest Hits."

Ever be going through one of those weird periods where on the one hand things are going really well and all this great stuff is happening with promise of lots of other exciting things happening but also things going really sucky all at once? And like you’re totally flummoxed and frazzled because you have no idea how to feel?. Like when something good happens, you’re not quite sure whether to be happy or sad. Or when something bad happens, you’re not quite sure whether you should be sad or happy. And you find yourself totally exhausted and tired because your mood changes every five minutes depending on nothing in particular and you start wishing you could just make up your damn mind.

Not that I’m going through that right now, I’m just saying. Because when it did happen, it was kind of grueling.

PS- guess which credit card company finally took money out of my account?

The long-running saga of my credit card bill is now ever. I paid it on Saturday. After they called me at 8:30 in the morning to let them know my bill is post-due. Or, at least I think it's paid as they've said that before. Lovely customer service there. At least they waived the late fee for me.

Hey, so it looks like MTV reads my blog as they're reairing Live 8 as we speak. And this time, with no commercials or VJ's. I quote: "in the wake of the live events last Saturday, our viewers have resoundingly told us online they want to see full-set performances from their favorite artists," MTV Networks Music Group President Van Toffler said.

Really? You think so Van? What what part of Music in Music Television do you don't understand? Imagine that, music fans turning onto a music channel to see actual music.

I also read that they did, indeed, cut away right in the middle of Floyd doing "Comfortably Numb" which is so unconscionable that I can only imagine that if there were any justice in this world, all the people behind said decision will lose their jobs only to find jobs hosting local access cable programs. And while working on them, will be attacked by wild ferrets let loose by one of the guests on the program and eaten alive while a "Real World/Road Rules Marathon" is played on the background screens

Thanks to the glory of TiVo all I can say is that there’s nothing like 2nd Season of "Buffy." Always "Buffy."

Anyways, here’s two work related stories for ya-

While walking to the coffee room, I passed the VP in charge of the department. Ever since I was forced into having to bust into his office and ask him to do something for me, we’ve been on "hey" terms whenever we pass in the hallway. As I passed him I was going to say "hey" but I noticed he was looking away, at the buttons on his jacket. Since he was preoccupied and I was (busy day) I didn’t say anything. Then, after he had already passed me, he said hi to me. So I’m wondering, did I screw up there? Did I make the social faux-pas? Was that bad of me? I wanted to say hi, but he was doing something else. It wasn’t me.

And finally, I think I’ve railed about this a few times, but I am not a big fan of current women’s fashions. Don’t look the "I Wanna Be a ‘ho", bare-midriffed, tight fighting clothes not one whit. Case in point what happened today. Thanks to a conference call, I found myself looking over at a coworker and couldn’t help but notice that she was wearing a lace thong. A very skimpy lace, partly frilly thong.

I do not want to see her lace thong. I do not want to know she’s wearing a lace thong. And while she’s one of my fave coworkers, it’s yet another point where the one who’s thongs you see are never the one’s that you want to see. But now, unfortunately, because of this little incident, all I can think about is her lace thong. Ugh

The latest with my favorite new credit card company is that I actually got through to somebody on the phone who could take my credit card payment. So still glowing over paying off my other card, I gave them a huge, heaping amount check over the phone. Which they never got around to processing. On the other hand, they call me every other day to let me know that I can find a great offer on their Web site.

You know, I'm trying to pay this thing off, but they just don't seem to want to let me.

As for my other card, the one I just paid off, I actually did such a good job of paying them off that they know owe me money. I love online banking, but everyonce in awhile, something goes wrong and something went wrong. I somehow, unwittingly, wound up giving them two payments last month. So, to sum up, with one credit card I can't pay them no matter how hard I try. The other one, I keep on paying them even if I don't have anything left to pay.

Onto other things, I just finished a book last week and am now sans books. So I picked up a book that I got for my birthday, a 1,000 page book on Caesar and the fall of the Roman Republic. It's actually part of a seven book volume all about the fall of the Republic and I totally love the books. I love historical fiction and since we all have a secret love of empire buried deep within us, my favorite empire is the Romans. Because "apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?" They were total bad asses and as long as you left them alone, they wouldn't fuck with you. And yeah, the fall of the Republic stuff does seem a tad prescient these days.

Anyhoo, the problem with the book is that it's 1,000 pages at least and pretty dense stuff. Not something one can read over a few days. While that itself isn't a problem, I did just read "War and Peace" after all, it is in that in about, oh, twelve days, my copy of the new Harry Potter book is showing up in which case I'm pretty much dropping what I'm doing and reading it. Which is why I'm not into starting a huge, epic, tome. Of course, it'll take about two to three days to read the new Harry Potter book, if that, but still.

If I remember correctly, the best part about watching Live Aid oh those years ago was that MTV actually showed the performances. Like Tom Petty came out in all of his then mutton-chopped glory and they’d actually show all of Tom’s performance. Twenty years later, MTV realized what a stupid way that is to show a concert and decided that what people really want to see are their Veejay’s telling you about what a great concert they’re not showing is.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think I actually witnessed this while watching part of Live 8

Sway: We’re back at the Live 8 performance and we’re just having a great time. Wow! What a show. We’ve seen some great performances here, haven’t we La La?

La La: Yeah. It’s been a great day so far with some great stuff. Let’s show you what you’ve missed. About ten minutes ago, P Diddy actually came out and rapped with the corpse of Biggie Smalls. Let’s show you a bit, A’ight!

They show about fifteen seconds of Diddy rapping with the corpse of Biggie Smalls

Sway: Wow. That was an awesome performance, wasn’t it? Especially when they brought out the corpse of Tupac and Diddy, the corpse of Biggie, and the corpse of Tupac all sang "Give Peace a Chance." What a show. And now, we have Foray out in the crowd.

Foray: Yo, what up, Sway! What a great show, what a great concert. We got close to a million people here in Philly watching this live. And here’s one of them. We Katherine Marie from Haddonfield New Jersey whose standing here watching David Lee Roth perform with Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam. Great show, isn’t it Christina!

Katherine: Whooo!!!!!!!!!!

Foray: What was your favorite part so far?

Katherine: When Destiny’s Children came out and dedicated "Bootlyicious" to the starving people in Ethiopia. That was awesome!

Foray: What brought you to the show today, Katherine?

Katherine: Well, I came because of the music, of course. I love Beyonce! Whooo!!!!!!!!!! Can I just say hi to my friends Theresa Marie and Marie Theresa? Hi girls!

Foray: And what about the message?

Katherine: Oh, like, I came for the message definitely too. It’s like sooo important to like help all those people who are like dying of that thing in that place. Free Africa!!!!!!!

Foray: Thanks Katherine. Now back to Sway.

Sway: Thanks Foray. We’re now going live to London to talk to Toure. Toure, what up dog?

Toure: Yo, thanks Sway. What can I say, it’s been a great show. Hasn’t it Play?

Play: Yes. It’s been the greatest show I’ve ever seen. And let’s check out a performance. We just saw Pink Floyd reuinte not only with Roger Waters but founding member Syd Barret too. The performance was so good the first hundred people in the audience all achieved nirvana and disappeared. Let’s check it out.

They show about fifteen seconds of Pink Floyd.

Toure: Wow, what a show. I’ve never seen a better performance ever. For all of you watching on TV, you’re missing quite a show. That was easily the best performance of the day right after U2’s performance. Holla at ya Sway!

Sway: Thanks Toure and Play. No doubt on the U2 show. We saw the rainbows breaking out all over London while Dick Cheney personally called Bono in the middle of "One" to renounce everything he’s ever done in his life in the background while you were interviewing Sum-41. And now we’re going to go to a live discussion with Chris Martin of Coldplay and Melinda from Real World Austin on free trade policy. Coming up after that, we’ll have ten minutes of commercials for zit cream and the new Dukes of Hazard movie and then we’ll show you the Who, as they jam with the ghosts of John Entwhistle and Keith Moon. They not only smashed all of their instruments, but all of Hyde Park too! Wow, what a show!

About the weekend.

First of all, nothing says fun like half-drunken bumper cars. And nothing says good ole America like a White Trash 4th of July, complete with a family of probable meth-heads with a potato gun shooting potatoes into the atmosphere and smashing truck windows. Not to mention their neighbors of probable meth dealers with a direct line of illegal Mexican fireworks shooting them off into the street. All to the strains of the wanna-be metal band jamming out in the meth-head families 2nd floor.

It was awesome.

Anyhoo, at the house friends rented, they had an actual real, live American flag. Naturally, this meant bringing it out onto the stoop and hanging. With said flag came the instruction manual for the flag rules and regulations on it’s care. Things like if you wear it as a lapel, it has to be on the left-side as close to the heart as possible. Or like it has to be above all other subordinate flags (subordinate, of course, being any flag that’s not America, Fuck Yeah!) or cannot be flown upside down or it can only be folded in a certain way. Even more hilariously, the flag, according to the flag rules manual, cannot be used for advertising purposes or to be worn as part of an outfit. Good to see all the adherence to all those rules as we debate once again a Constitutional Amendmant against flag desecration.

So I wondered who the hell came up with those rules? Somewhere along the lines, the Government set a bunch of people together, probably a bunch of reactionry John Birchers, who came up with them. Probably while listening to "Ballad of the Green Berets" and whacking off to John Wayne movies. Cause not to get all Grad School on you, but one could say that there is a bit fetishization going there with a piece of red, white and blue cloth that never, ever runs.

Later that night, as the fireworks were flying and the metal band was jamming, somebody joked about burning it, what with flag burning in the news so much these days. So somebody who was there decided what the hey and brought the flag with us to the beach to burn along with all our fireworks that were purchased.

I have to say that even for me, burning the flag is a bit too much. Yeah, it’s kind of fun in a rebellious, bite me super-patriots kind of way, but considering how people get all crazy over it, it’s just too stupid. I mean, if we burned the flag, the terrorists would win. Luckily, thanks to the cops chasing off the beach, we never get a chance to burn, baby, burn the flag. Probably for the best too. As we speculated later, if we got caught, it would be on Fox News within minutes. Something along the lines of "San Francisco Liberals Burn American Flag in Santa Cruz. Why do they Hate America?." Or considering both the religion and orientation of the two people looking to burn the flag the most, "Gay, Liberal Jews Burn American Flag on Nation’s Birthday. Stay tuned as Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity will publicly flog them!"

By the way, bumper cars is totally wasted on the young. When your a kid, you have no agression or angst to need to get rid of. Your all happy all the time so the ability to run into things isn't something you savor as much. And as an adult, you get to drive and just the mere thought of being able to slam into somebody who cuts you off is enough to make it worthwhile.